Cardinals use late rally to stun Nats; Yankees advance

WASHINGTON — Doesn't matter how bad things look for the St. Louis Cardinals. Trailing by a bunch, down to their last strike, they simply stay calm and do what it takes to win.

Erasing an early six-run hole in Game 5 slowly but surely, the defending World Series champion Cardinals got a tying two-out, two-run single from Daniel Descalso and a go-ahead two-run single from Pete Kozma in the ninth inning and came all the way back to beat the Washington Nationals 9-7 Friday night and win their NL division series.

It was the largest comeback ever in a winner-take-all postseason game, according to STATS LLC. No other club in this sort of ultimate pressure situation had come back from more than four down.

First-year manager Mike Matheny and the wild-card Cardinals, the last team to clinch a playoff spot this year, will open the NL championship series at San Francisco on Sunday.

Yankees oust Orioles

NEW YORK — CC Sabathia pitched a four-hitter and the New York Yankees once again came out on the right side of a disputed home run call against the Orioles in October, beating Baltimore 3-1 Friday in the deciding Game 5 to reach the AL championship series against Detroit.

Nate McLouth's bid for a tying homer in the sixth inning was ruled foul by the slimmest of margins. Sabathia hung on in the late innings for his first postseason complete game and defeated the Orioles for the second time in this division series

The ALCS opens tonight at Yankee Stadium.

Raul Ibanez hit a go-ahead single in the fifth off Jason Hammel and Ichiro Suzuki added an RBI double in the sixth.

Curtis Granderson boosted it to 3-0 with a second-deck solo homer in the seventh. The Yankees advanced following their decision to bench slumping third baseman Alex Rodriguez.